Simon’s lips tingled as mixed saliva evaporated into the cold air.

Both boys were panting hard as they parted. Jaimie’s eyes slowly fluttered open to meet Simon’s, and the taller boy felt his friend’s tail curl possessively around the small of his back as he made to lean away.

‘What took you so long to do that?’ Jaimie asked, a wry grin slowly spreading across his face as Simon caught his breath. ‘Didn’t think you’d ever been interested~’ The shorter boy reached up and gently stroked his fingertips along the side of Simon’s neck, ears tilting in amusement as he watched his room-mate squirm at his touch.

‘I-I’ve been interested…’ Simon replied, averting his gaze and flushing red. ‘I was just… worried you’d think that… th-that, well…’

‘That it’d be awkward?’ Jaimie smirked, his hand cupping Simon’s cheek and guiding his face back down again. ‘Nah…’

This time, Jaimie leaned up to meet him, and the two kissed for a second time, Simon having to suppress a whimper as he once more felt Jaimie’s tongue slide over his own.

Awkwardness… wasn’t what he’d been worried about—not mainly, anyway—but his concerns were quite hard to concentrate on with his friend’s touch, taste, and scent so utterly dominating his awareness.

Simon had spent so long fantasising about running his fingers through Jaimie’s hair, about caressing his cheek, kissing his neck… And now he could do all of those things. Show the other boy just how much he meant to him.

So he did.

Sliding a glove off to better feel what he was doing, he poured all the honesty of his affection into his touch. He wanted Jaimie to know that he cared about him. That he didn’t just see him as a novelty, but so, so much more.

And then he felt a hand press firmly up against the front of his trousers, and everything he had been worried about suddenly came back into uncomfortably sharp focus.

Fighting against what felt like every natural instinct his body possessed, Simon leaned back away from the boy under him and gently reached down to take his wrist, directing his hand away from where it had been threatening to explore.

‘…w-worried that you’d think I just wanted the same thing as “Niles from Tudor College”…’ he mumbled, averting his gaze as he felt his cheeks flush again.

Jaimie just blinked, staring up at his friend with a quizzical expression.

‘What… do you want, then…?’ he asked, tilting his head to try and catch Simon’s eye.

It took Simon more than a few moments to find the words, and a few moments more to find the courage to say them. Even when he had, he discovered he couldn’t manage with Jaimie patiently watching him for his answer, and so he buried his face in the other boy’s neck, hugging him tightly where he lay.

‘…You…’ he muttered, nuzzling against the tufts of perfect black hair that stuck out from under Jaimie’s hat. ‘All of you… Not just… sex. More… like, y’know…’ He sighed nervously into his best friend’s collar. ‘A… real relationship…’

There was a very brief pause as Jaimie parsed Simon’s mumbled words before Simon felt the other boy tangibly stiffen.

An excruciating silence followed, before Jaimie firmly—but very gently—pushed Simon off of him and to the side, and then sat up enough that he could lean on his elbow. Simon felt a distinct sinking sensation as he saw that Jaimie’s lips were thin and his eyes were focussed indeterminately on the middle distance.

He’d screwed it up. He’d had one shot at this, and he’d been too forward about it. That was it, then. “Awkwardness” was about to be the least of all the awful consequences he was going to have to live with. His best friend… What had he been thinking?!

‘Uhh, Si…?’ Jaimie finally spoke, his voice soft and apologetic, but his gaze still firmly elsewhere. ‘I… I’m not sure that’d be such a great idea…’

He looked supremely uncomfortable, his tail stiff and his ears doing that minute twitch that Simon knew they only did when Jaimie was consciously trying to keep them from emoting.

Endless flirting. Short flings. One night stands. That had always been Jaimie’s thing. It wasn’t exactly the behaviour of someone who thrived on deep, meaningful connections, but Simon was only just now starting to consider the possibility that his friend might actually have been actively avoiding them.

All the same, something within Simon told him to push just a little harder. He’d already probably done irreparable damage to their friendship, so what did he have to lose with one little salvage attempt? Their connection was deep and meaningful, wasn’t it? Why did it have to have limits and boundaries when the shallow, meaningless ones didn’t?

‘I… really like you, Jai,’ he said, also leaning up on one elbow so their eyes were at the same level, even if Jaimie was still refusing to look at him. ‘But, I get it. It’d be… different for sure.’ He resisted the urge to scream in despair and instead gave his friend a reassuring smile.

‘We could just like… take it really slowly,’ he offered, ‘give it a try one little step at a time. I mean, it’s not like there’s any need to rush. We’ve known each other forever, a-and we’ve got all the time in the world to work things ou—’

‘I’m leaving,’ Jaimie interrupted. His eyes hadn’t moved, and his tone was uncharacteristically flat.

‘Wh-What…?’ Simon asked, that sinking sensation rapidly returning in full force. ‘Right… now…?’ Jaimie shook his head, looking down at his knees and, for the first time since clamming up, letting an emotion slip in the form of a short, melancholy sigh.

‘No,’ he answered. ‘Tidewater. Avalon.’ He turned his head so he was finally looking Simon in the eye, although now Simon really wished that he hadn’t. ‘The whole Caliburn system… I uhh… I got my licence last week and…’ He took a deep breath, once more averting his gaze.

‘And I applied to the OCDF.’ He made a small, guilty shrug. ‘It went through. I passed. I’m only here ‘til we finish school, and then…’

The boy lifted his gaze up to the sky where the very first of the stars were starting to emerge from behind the dwindling light of the setting sun. He made an upward gesture with his free hand, and Simon resisted the overwhelming urge to be sick.

‘The… OCDF…?’ he asked, heart hammering as he waited for the moment Jaimie cracked a smile and revealed he was joking. ‘But… I thought your dad had a shipping job lined up for you when you graduated…?’

‘Screw my dad,’ Jaimie replied, a distinct hint of bitterness creeping into his voice, ‘frankly. And screw the “family business”. You know how many times I’ve even seen him this year?’ He turned to Simon and flashed up a number with his fingers. Simon’s mind was too preoccupied to register the actual number, but even he had the wherewithal to acknowledge that any figure that could be represented on one hand was depressingly inadequate.

‘The Confederation military’s probably one of the few places he doesn’t get any say over me,’ Jaimie continued, letting out a long sigh as he tilted his head back and allowed himself a small smirk. ‘And I’ll get to fly some pretty awesome ships to boot, hehe…’

‘But…’ Simon winced, ‘what… what about Lexi…?’

What about me?!

‘Same plan,’ Jaimie answered, ‘just with the Marines. She scraped through on the fitness test, but her reflexes are almost as good as mine.’ He turned to Simon again and flashed him a fleeting smug grin. ‘Although she’d have it the other way around, heh. But yeah, she’s heading out same time I do.’

‘I-I…’ Simon stammered, trying not to panic as he watched the very core of the future he’d always envisioned crumbling around him. He swallowed and shook his head clear, deciding to worry about that later in favour of the short time he and Jaimie apparently had left.

‘I want to try anyway,’ he said. ‘E-Even if it’s only for a few months…’ Jaimie just gave his friend a sad smile as he read the honesty plain on his face.

‘It’d hurt too much, Si,’ he replied, before giving his room-mate a cheeky smirk. ‘But I’d still be up for some “with benefits” in the meantime, heh…’

Now it was Simon’s turn to chuckle and try for a cheeky smirk.

‘Best friends with benefits?’ he asked. ‘You know what that sounds like, right?’

Jaimie couldn’t help but snort in amusement at the observation, but the apologetic look in his eye was enough to firmly assure Simon that the only “benefit” in question here would be sex.

Simon swallowed as he met Jaimie’s eye, feeling his cheeks start to glow at the thought of sleeping with him. He did want that, but…

‘I-Ironically,’ he replied a little more seriously, ‘great as that sounds, somehow it feels like it’d hurt to be uhh… physically closer without…’ He sighed, almost feeling silly as he tried to put his desire for actual romance to words. ‘...y’know…’

‘More than it’d hurt pretending we both don’t want to ‘til I leave…?’ Jaimie asked, clearly sensing the depth of Simon’s conflict and giving the other boy a reassuring smile.

‘…good… point…’ Simon conceded, still very much uncertain, but grateful that Jaimie at least didn’t seem to be pushing him for an immediate answer. ‘Could I… think about it…?’

Jaimie’s smile parted into a familiar grin, the last of the waning sunlight glinting off of his inhumanly long canines as he turned his head back towards the frozen lake.

‘Sure.’

The two sat for a long while in a far less awkward silence than before, watching together as the sun slowly disappeared behind the mountain peaks, and the pine branches that weren’t hidden under snow began to twinkle with glowing specks of vivid blue light.

‘First hot chocolate,’ Jaimie commented, having briefly turned to inspect the phosphorescent starflies that now illuminated the nearest tree, ‘then sex…’ He turned his head back to give Simon a jovial smirk. ‘You really do know how to tease a guy, huh?’

‘Says you!’ Simon snorted, shaking his head before turning back to watch the sunset. ‘I… I get why you wanna get away from your dad, but…’ He sighed, wishing for all the world that they’d had this conversation a year ago. ‘I’m… really gonna miss you, man…’

‘Yeah,’ Jaimie nodded, shuffling up so the two of them were sat a little closer again, ‘me too…’

‘We’re uhh…’ Simon grimaced, resisting the urge to wrap his arm around Jaimie’s shoulder for now, ‘we’re still friends, right…? Regardless of “benefits”…?’

‘Huh?’ Jaimie replied, frowning at the side of Simon’s head for a moment before turning to watch the sunset with him. ‘Yeah? Duh.’ Simon exhaled a shaky breath of relief.

‘And you’re coming back?’ he added. ‘Once you’ve made your point to your dad?’

‘Probably,’ Jaimie answered. ‘But hey, even if I end up working somewhere else after, I’ll still definitely come back and visit. I’m a qualified starship pilot now, after all, hehe!’

‘You’d better,’ Simon grinned, nudging his friend in the ribs with his elbow. ‘No deciding you’re too good for this place whilst you’re off doing cool military stuff.’

‘Heh, don’t worry, I’ll stay in touch,’ Jaimie said, leaning the side of his head onto Simon’s shoulder. ‘Promise.’

‘Good…’ Simon sighed, doing his best to enjoy the moment rather than dwell on the future as he tilted his own head and rested it on his friend’s.

Maybe Jaimie was right, he thought. Either way, Simon was going be holding something back. The only real question was whether it would hurt more to hold everything back, or just the part he really wanted most. For now, at least, he was just glad to have the other boy here at his side. Especially now he knew that even that couldn’t be expected to last forever.

Soon enough, the sky was awash with all the glimmering stars of the Pleiades Ridge, their light mirrored down below by the forest of countless starflies glittering amongst the trees.

Reluctant as he was to disturb the scene and draw the bittersweet outing to a close, Simon could feel himself getting cold, and he didn’t like their chances of staying out here overnight without camping gear. If only he’d had the foresight to bring a tent…

‘We should head back,’ he said, tone reluctant but resolute. ‘Don’t wanna miss the last bus.’

‘Yeah…’ Jaimie replied, seemingly equally disinclined. ‘But just one thing first…’

Quickly checking behind him, Jaimie got up into a crouching position before rolling over backwards and landing with a soft pomf in the previously undisturbed snow.

Simon watched him over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow as the other boy cast his arms and legs wide, pushing his head back into the snow before sweeping his limbs up and down. Feeling a smile break onto his face as he watched Jaimie carve out his mark, Simon got to his feet to do likewise.

Lying down just far enough away from Jaimie that their fingers brushed as they swept their arms up and down, he made sure to leave a good imprint before once more getting to his feet.

Standing back and admiring their work, Simon couldn’t help but feel a small pang of melancholy as he saw the two figures next to one another, one with distinctive marks above its head where Jaimie’s ears had left their own impression, and the other without. Maybe their lives were just too different for the two of them to have ever been anything more than friends with an expiration date. Maybe all this had always been inevitable, and Simon had just been too myopic to see it.

‘Huh, wait a minute,’ Jaimie commented, stepping over to Simon’s imprint and crouching down. ‘You did yours wrong.’ Momentarily distracted from his budding gloominess by his friend’s odd comment, Simon watched as Jaimie leaned forward—tail stretched high for balance—and pressed flat impressions of his hand into either side of the figure’s head.

‘There you go,’ Jaimie chuckled as he stood back up and admired the two snow cats the pair had made, ‘much better!’ He gave Simon a wide grin before nodding back in the direction of the café and making to leave. ‘C’mon, Lexi’s probably wondering where I am.’

Simon paused for a few more moments, feeling a pleasant warmth in his chest as he regarded the two newly kindred figures in the snow and reminded himself of Jaimie’s promise that they’d see one another again some day. Just because this chapter in their lives was coming to a close didn’t mean there couldn’t still be many more to come.

Once the sensation had completely overpowered his earlier melancholy, he let it seep out onto his face as a contented smile, and stepped away to follow his friend.

‘You should message her and let her know you’re staying at my place tonight!’ he called after Jaimie as he headed for the path back to the café.

‘Huh? Really?’ came the reply from beyond the tree line. Simon just chuckled to himself and shrugged as he followed along.

‘You said you wanted to see it,’ he explained, leaving his other, as-yet-undecided motive unsaid. ‘Figure you better had whilst you still have the chance!’

‘Oh, niiice!’ Jaimie called back as the two boys vanished off into the woods, leaving the secluded frozen lake in the care of a silent pair of snow cats, lying side by side and gazing up together at a boundless sky filled with stars.